


Uncertain Changes

by Sylvia Knight (Gayle)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1990-01-01
Updated: 1990-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:43:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gayle/pseuds/Sylvia%20Knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Previously published in the fanzine Fire and Ice #1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncertain Changes

The new soap had a pleasant scent of cardamom, and Blake was working up a lather when Avon came into the shower room.  Deliberately, Blake began to slow his pace.  After the shower would be a good time to fill Avon in about Freedom City, give him all the information Docholli had provided about Lurgen and the brain print.  Cally and Vila were on watch and Jenna was asleep, so they weren't likely to be interrupted, not here at any rate.  This would be as good a time as any to talk, with both of them refreshed and in a good mood.  Avon's mood was bound to deteriorate rapidly once Blake began, but it was better than starting off with Avon in his typical antagonistic posture.

Tossing a dark crimson robe unto the bench, Avon flashed a smile over his shoulder and began to strip off his clothes, exuding an air of smug triumph.  Blake was definitely curious, definitely suspicious, but he was not overly concerned.  Not that he didn't think that whatever it was that Avon and Vila had been up to, or were up to, would piss him off.  No doubt it would.  He was also sure it was not a major problem.  That malicious twist in Avon's smile had been far too gleeful.  Blake worried when he saw the quick, lethal glitter of a dagger flashing in Avon's eyes, or black poison pooling in their brooding depths.  No, Avon was not about to defect, or shanghai the Liberator, he'd just somehow managed to fuck Blake over royally.

_Don't you wish,_ a small, hot voice whispered, a private communication between crotch and brain.  And he had to answer, _Yes, yes I do._

Or rather, what he would like, right now, right this instant, remembering that superior little smile, was to hold Avon exactly as he was, curved over the bench, slide his cock between those beckoning white cheeks and fuck him till he begged for mercy.  Fuck him till he begged for more.  Till Avon came, screaming Blake's name, and then collapsed in a panting, sated heap, every molecule limp as a jelly fish.  Absolutely and utterly surrendered.

Blake turned his back on Avon, hit the cold spray and stood there, shuddering and sputtering till it took effect.  He shut it off, grabbed his towel and headed back to the benches as Avon stepped under another nozzle.  Drying himself, Blake watched as water cascaded over Avon's body and steam billowed up around him, his face a study in pure, sensual bliss.  Avon liked it really hot.  Blake quickly jerked on his white cotton pants and tunic, leaving the top unbelted to better cover his burgeoning cock.  So much for the efficacious cold shower.  He was used to keeping a choke hold on his sex drive, but the complexity of his responses to Avon continually broke through his control.  He had never had this much trouble subduing the initial affinity he felt with Jenna, the tender curiosity he felt toward Cally.  He supposed the anger was part of it, the spur of adrenaline.  It had taken him time to see, to feel the attraction behind the anger, within it ... and far more awareness and energy than he liked to admit to restrain it.

Well, the occasional fantasies did no harm, though a hard-on in the showers was a singular lapse of command.  This obsession with Avon was such a cliché, really, the attraction of opposites.  Was it that way for Avon, as well?  Sometimes he thought it must be, feeling the energy radiating off Avon in one of his exquisite furies.  Usually, he concluded it was his fantasy alone, that electric sexual field was just part of Avon, intriguing and dangerous.  Definitely dangerous.  It was far too great a risk to test the theory.  Blake sat down on the bench and directed his attention to the intricacies of donning his socks.

Avon emerged from the shower.  Considering the way the man barricaded himself inside his elaborate wardrobe, he was remarkably unselfconscious naked.  And beautiful, with that arrogant aristocrat's face and the compact, neatly-muscled body.  Standing beside Blake, Avon dried his hair vigorously, his head half concealed in the towel.  Unobserved, Blake's attention wandered over the fair skin flushed from the heat and sparkling with water droplets, then fixed on the genitals, the cock bobbing slightly with the lively motion above, the balls drawn up plump and tight.  Blake began to nibble his thumb, his tongue playing back and forth, using the moist tip to trace the outline of his own lips.  Realizing what he was doing, he chuckled at his own unconscious gesture.  Avon's cock looked so rosy and sweet, as if his balls were lifting it up with the sole purpose of offering it to Blake to suck on ....

The display had been so tempting that he had forgotten to be discreet in his ogling.  The cock was no longer bouncing.  Blake looked up into Avon's face and caught it in a second of surprise and vulnerability, Then, even as the lust in his own face muddled into something between bemused apology and chagrined defiance, the startled innocence in Avon's transformed into recognition.  Blake heard him take a quick breath, a gasp.  With that sound, soft but sharp as a match strike, desire flamed to heat in Avon's eyes, then was as quickly extinguished in utter darkness.  For a moment they stared at each other in blank desperation, unmoving.  Blake had the absurd sense of them both scrambling for masks, grabbing the wrong ones in their haste and reaching for yet another.  On a sudden, overpowering impulse, he abandoned his own search for something to hide behind.  To hell with the danger, seeing that spark of passion in Avon's eyes made it worth the risk.

Blake went down on his knees in front of Avon, knowing all his hunger and longing was plain in his face.  Fear too, he supposed.  Despite sweet temptations of the flesh, how could Avon resist such a perfectly splendid chance to humiliate him?  _But why bother to dismiss me?_ Blake thought watching Avon's face, for the mask Avon finally chose to assume was lascivious and faintly mocking.  _I'm the supplicant here, Avon can have his satisfaction and my abasement as well._   But he wanted Avon, as much as he had ever imagined, and more, so Blake did not move as Avon relaxed back against the wall, smiling that knowing little smile.  He shifted his hips forward, a more provocative stance that offered his cock to Blake.

"Why not?" he said.

Blake saw that Avon's cock was stirring, rising to meet him.  Lust surged through him and he leaned forward and engulfed it in one swallow, moaning as he felt its immediate pulse and swell within his mouth.  Keeping the suction strong, Blake drew on greedily, voraciously, sucking till he heard Avon moan in turn, felt him thrust deeper into the tight wetness that embraced him.  Until Avon's cock was as hard and throbbing in his mouth as Blake's was between his legs.  Blake pulled away for a moment, nuzzling Avon's balls, breathing in their pungent musk, then looked up into his face.  Avon's eyes were hot and hooded, but the sardonic little smile is still curled about the edges of his lips.  Blake closed his eyes and pressed his face to Avon's stomach, taut and smooth under his cheek.  His own ache was so intense, he wanted, needed Avon to match it, wanted that superior amusement to vanish in consuming passion.  Blake rubbed his face against Avon's cock, kissed the snug roundness of the balls, and then he took Avon into his mouth again.  Starting slow and sweet, gently building his efforts, Blake wooed Avon with wet caresses, doing everything he could think of to pleasure him with lips and tongue and teeth, while his hands roamed over his flanks and belly and buttocks.  They stroked Avon's inner thighs, cradling his balls then moved inward, Blake's hands caressing his ass from underneath, his fingertips sliding inward to tease between his cheeks.

Avon stiffened at the touch.  Blake knew that penetration was not what Avon had agreed to, not even this symbolic entry.  But that made him want it all the more, not with the urge to dominate that he had felt before, but because this one encounter was all Avon might ever give him and Blake wanted to touch him everywhere.  He sucked on Avon beseechingly, his fingers stroking over him, teasing, pressing in just a little each time they brushed that tight drawn aperture.  The little portal was so tantalizing, so alive against his fingertips, its delicate texture like moist, wrinkled satin.  Gradually, Avon relented, opening his legs a little wider, relaxing to accept Blake inside his body.  Still sucking Avon's cock, Blake went into him slowly, first one finger then two stroking the smooth, pliant walls of the moist inner passage, so terribly fragile and vulnerable to his touch.  The gentler his caresses the more Avon responded.  Blake didn't have to look at him to feel how is body was more giving, to hear the deeper timbre of the moans was making now.

But Blake did want to see Avon's face so he drew his mouth away to look at him, his fingers still within him, caressing that exquisite internal fragility.  Avon was beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful, his expression soft and dazed with arousal.  His eyes were closed but he opened them and looked at Blake, knowing the yielding Blake saw on his face, letting him see it.  Avon reached out one hand, running his fingers through Blake's hair in an abstracted caress.  Blake moved his fingers inside Avon, increasing the pace, watching the effect of his touch.  Avon's head tossed back and forth, the soft, dark sounds reverberating in his throat, and Blake pressed inward, probing to reach the deepest sensitivity.

Gasping, Avon stared down at Blake, his eyes black, the yielding tenderness suddenly focused to a fiercer need.  He brought his other hand up, drawing Blake's face closer, his expression intent as he guided the waiting mouth to his cock, watched his cock sliding between Blake's lips.  Watching Avon's face in turn, Blake opened to receive him, wanting the finish as much as Avon did, wanting Avon to read it in his face.  Their gazes locked for a second, and Avon whispered his name, an inaudible breath, then he closed his eyes and gave himself up to the double sensation of the wet, demanding mouth enclosing his cock, the hard, driving thrust of the fingers inside him.  Aroused, craving his reward, Blake sucked Avon till he arched, pressing Blake's head close as he spilled his come down Blake's throat, crying out with each pulsating burst.  And Blake drank him eagerly, swallowing the slick, bittersweet flood that filled his mouth and wanting more.

Reluctantly, Blake released the softening cock.  Avon gave a final shuddering sigh and his legs seemed to melt like wax.  Blake lowered him down to the floor and gathered him close in his arms, his hands moving over Avon's body with firm, soothing strokes, smiling as Avon murmured his contentment.  Blake was painfully roused, for all his undemanding caresses, but he tried to keep his hips, his erection, twisted away from physical contact.  Avon had only agreed to let Blake suck his cock and, even after Avon had responded so intensely, he wasn't sure what was permitted.  Blake desperately wanted, even assumed some reciprocation to follow, but he was afraid that Avon would turn contrary if he did the wrong thing now, and waited for the other man to make the next move.

After a moment, Avon rose on one elbow and looked at him, his face but serene but unreadable.  Seeing Blake's distress, he smiled an small apology, then reached down and cupped Blake's cock through his trousers, shaping his hand to the length of Blake's arousal.  Closing his eyes, Blake pressed up into the caress, biting his lip as he felt Avon's fingers deftly unfastened his fly, opened his pants to release him.  Blake groaned, finding even the first tentative touch on his sex devastating.  He looked at Avon again, watching the other man look at his own hand moving up and down on Blake's shaft.  The explorative strokes were almost too gentle as Avon's fingertips surveyed the shape, the textures of Blake's aching cock, the full sac beneath.  He went on that way a long time, his fingers drifting between Blake's cock and balls in curious, intimate homage.  Delicately, Avon's fingertips circled the head of Blake's cock, spreading the drop of liquid that oozed from the tip around the crown, the flared ridge.  Blake's breath hissed between his teeth in frustration.  He wanted whatever Avon was willing to give him but his sensitivity was edging too close to pain.

"Please," he whispered.

Avon released his cock, and looked at him for a moment with those fathomless eyes.  Blake felt a single fingertip outline the shape of his lips, brush over the trace of come at one corner.  He turned to lick that last drop from Avon's finger.  Tilting Blake's face up, Avon leaned forward and kissed him once, a moist, lingering kiss that tasted him, tasted himself on the other's lips.  Then he drew away.  "What do you want, Blake?" he asked quietly.

Blake wanted anything, anything to complete the crying need in him.  Avon's hands ... his mouth.  But most of all Blake wanted to fuck him, to feel his cock embraced in the other man's flesh, to feel himself buried deep inside the turbulent enigma that was Avon.  He wanted it desperately, but he still couldn't believe Avon would permit it.  But Avon read the hunger in his face and nodded, without surprise.  Pulling his long robe from the bench to the floor, Avon lay down on it and opened his legs, turning his face away from Blake.

"You might lock the door," he said with mild irony.

Stunned, Blake stood up then went to comply with the request, wondering at their lapse of sanity.  Returning, he hurriedly stripped off the rest of his clothes, staring down at the body offered to him, the pale skin luminous against the garnet red of the robe.  The open V of the legs leading his eyes to the dark cleft of the buttocks.  Looking around, Blake grabbed a jar from a nearby shelf, scanning the label to see if it was safe to use as a lubricant.  Reassured, he spread the dense cream on himself then knelt between Avon's legs, sliding more of it along the crack of Avon's ass, pressing his thickly laded fingers to the center of the orifice.  He felt Avon close against the light touch, then soften to let Blake prepare him.  Trembling with anticipation, Blake positioned himself, pressing his cock head against the opening, gently forcing that first tight barrier.  Avon hissed, an involuntary sound, and his hand gripped a corner of the robe, the knuckles whitening.  It was not the sound of a man used to the small initial pain of entry, and Blake stared down at him, reading the rigid stress in the unmoving body.

"Avon?" he asked.

"Yes," Avon answered, almost wearily.

Blake moaned, clamping down on a sudden rush of desire, realizing that Avon had let no man into him before now.  Tenderness warred with lust as he fought the impulse to plunge into him, claim him.  He could not bear to hurt Avon, despoil this offering.  He began to move again, a little at a time, inching into the tight channel, sweating with the effort to control his own need.  Avon did not make another sound until Blake had entered him fully and stayed like that, not moving at all, for a minute.  Then he gave an almost inaudible sigh and shifted beneath Blake.  Even that tiny movement made Blake groan and grit his teeth.  Against his will, he drew back and thrust, then froze as Avon's body tensed.  Shaking, they maintained that pose until Avon relaxed, releasing his breath.  Unexpectedly, he lifted his hips and pressed back against Blake, seeking the impalement.

"Don't," Blake whispered.  "Ah, Avon ... don't."  It would break the last rein he held on himself.  But he had to move, the urge was too compelling to hold back.  He began again slowly, small nudges to accustom Avon to the sensation, while his own desire built to agony.  His control slipping, he thrust hard once and Avon inhaled sharply.  Quivering, sweat streaming from his body, Blake held himself motionless.

"Blake," Avon's voice was smoky dark, and under it was a tongue of fire that licked along Blake's nerves.  "Move, Blake.  Let me feel you."

Blake cried out and lunged, driving into Avon.  Avon gasped but there was no pain in the sound now.  His body opened to Blake and his ass pressed back against Blake forcing him deeper, buttocks and thighs molding against him.  Blake groaned and his arms went around Avon, embracing him tightly, his hands instinctively seeking the growing erection they found there.  Heat radiated from their joining.  Their skin seemed to dissolve, their bodies fuse together, as if their flesh were molten.  Within the straining oneness were acute pulses of self awareness, a rivulet of sweat on Blake's forehead, the gathering tightness in his balls, the fleeting brush of cool air along the shaft of his cock as he pulled out and thrust himself back into the crucible of Avon's body.  But it was not his own sensations that drove Blake over the edge, it was the deep vibration of Avon's moan, the sound of it shivering along his nerves, the feel of Avon's sex swelling in his grip.  He sobbed Avon's name and came, releasing his pent up seed in a streaming torrent of pleasure.

Heart pounding, breathing ragged, Blake collapsed on top of Avon.  He was still half senseless when Avon shifted beneath him, but he had enough awareness to roll over and release the other man from his weight.  Rising over him, Avon opened Blake's legs and knelt between them.   Blake looked up and saw first the rigid cock that jutted from Avon's groin, and Avon's hands stroking it, anointing it with the lubricant Blake had used.  Blake's gaze traveled up, meeting smoldering eyes, the tranquil submission Avon had offered before incinerated in this wilder, darker lust.  Sated himself, still he felt a surge of longing.




"Yes," he whispered, "Oh yes."

His whole body still quaking in aftermath, Blake lifted his legs back with own arms, exposing himself to that devouring gaze, offering himself to the ravishment it promised.  Avon positioned himself and Blake welcomed the first piercing stab of pleasure, felt his own tightness closing around that thick dagger of flesh.  Avon's head went back and he gasped, entering Blake with three quick, hard thrusts.  Then his eyes met Blake's again blazing with a triumph Blake could only welcome, his own surrender utterly sweet as Avon drove into him, plundered him.  He did not want to move himself, wanted only to feel Avon's glorious, abandoned attack.  Blake watched the passion building, that feral black fire in Avon burning hotter, brighter.  The darkness consumed itself, burning red hot, white hot, a blue white flame that flared and exploded.  Straining against him, Avon cried out once, a high, startled sound, and Blake saw the orgasm sweep him, the shock of its intensity, the joy of it a sudden light illuminating his face.  Avon's cock throbbed inside Blake, his come pulsing into him and Avon's ecstasy seemed to pour through Blake as well, filling him with that flaming light.

Blake felt an answering wave of pure joy rushing out to Avon in response, its shimmering brilliance blinding all his senses in a climax no less overwhelming for being purely emotional.  The flowing light ebbed sweetly, subsided, Blake sighed as he felt Avon's cock slip from his body.  He looked up and found Avon was staring at him, his eyes wide with wonder.

"Yes," Blake answered softly, "for me too."

The tenderness was back in Avon's face, so moving that Blake pulled Avon into his arms, rocking him.  He gazed into Avon's eyes, sharing this newfound rapture.  Another wave of joy washed through him and then, in its wake, came relief and a florid satisfaction.  His arms tightened possessively about the man he held.  After this, Avon would never leave Blake, never leave the Liberator.  Avon was **his** now.  Blake hadn't realized how close their empathy still was until Avon pulled away from him.  Face closed, Avon jerked his stained robe from under Blake, wrapped it around himself and left the room.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Blake got back into his own clothes and followed Avon to his cabin.  For a moment he thought Avon would refuse him entry, but the door opened.  A wise choice.  If he'd had to, Blake would have called Vila to bypass the lock.  He couldn't let Avon shut him out now. Inside, Avon had dressed, defiant black leather, bolted along the shoulder. His back was turned to Blake and he was packing.

"No!" he said fiercely, trying to quell the panic rising in him.  Crossing the room swiftly, Blake took hold of his arm.  Avon whirled on him, his face livid with fury.  Blake let go, but he did not back up.  "No, Avon," he repeated.

"Oh yes, Blake.  I am leaving.  I've had enough.  I want to be free of all this.  I want to be free of you."  His arm jerked slightly, as if he wanted to hit Blake, or as if Blake still held him.

There was no point in telling Avon he was free, had always been free.  And the only proof of it was to let him go.  But Avon didn't want to go.  Blake wondered how long it had been since Avon didn't really want to be free of him.  How ruthlessly Avon would fight now to break the bond now.  How ruthlessly he himself would fight to stop him.  Blake knew he was willing to do almost anything to keep Avon, but he did not know where the 'almost' ended.

"Tell me why," he demanded, playing for time.

"I'll be a fool once, but not twice."  Avon's voice was an exasperated snarl.  "You used me the wrong way this time, Blake."

"Not in this.  You **know** that.  What happened was spontaneous, and it happened because I wanted you.  I've wanted you for months.  Damn it, Avon, when I knelt for you, I was afraid you were going to laugh in my face."

Avon had stopped packing.  "Not at the beginning," he acknowledged.  "But it makes no difference how it started.  You're ready to use it now."

And 'You don't have to let me' was no response, for Blake realized Avon was terrified he would do just that.

Avon stepped up to him, his most challenging stance, his face scant inches from Blake's.  Then he smiled his 'wouldn't you love to kill me smile' and said, "Now's as good a time as any to leave, Blake, seeing as I just won five million credits on the Big Wheel in Freedom City."

Blake felt a rush of anger.  So that's why the bastard had been in such a good mood.  Risking Blake's life, and Jenna's and Cally's, so he could stuff his pockets.  For one exquisite, enraged second he wanted nothing more than to pound Avon into a bloody pulp.  Fists clenching, Blake turned away and forced himself to swallow his anger.  All of it.  His body was still shaking, but his head was cool.  His reaction had been justified but it could be put aside.  Considering how constantly, how violently Avon argued with him, there had been few such acts of defiance.  Freedom City was behind them and no harm had come from it.  What was happening now was what was important.

"You don't want to go."  His voice was blunt, hard.  He wanted desperately to control the situation, control Avon, to manipulate him somehow, but if Avon saw through him it would be the end.

"No."  Avon answered.  The acknowledgment should have been a victory, but the tone said he was going anyway.  _No, I don't, but I will._

"What price do you want to stay, Avon?" he asked, and wondered if he would be able to give it.  Anger came again and he went on before Avon could answer.  "Am I supposed to become an intergalactic bank robber to win you?  Grow rich and fat on some obscure world while the rest of humanity is trampled underfoot by the Federation?  Prove I love you by giving up everything I believe in?"

There was a frozen silence.  _Hell_ , Blake thought, _I've said it_.  _The forbidden word._   It was amazing how a single fuck could bind a complex tangle of emotions into one.  One equally complex and tangled.  He hadn't fully realized what he felt until he voiced it.  Having spoken it aloud to Avon, he didn't know if it was the uncalculated truth or the ultimate manipulation.

"None of those things," Avon replied, after a moment.  "I've always thought it was supremely idiotic to fall in love with someone, and immediately demand they transform themselves to match your own preconceived pattern."

Blake inhaled sharply, wanting to embrace Avon for the acknowledgment.  But Avon had parceled the words out scrupulously, as he might repay an unwanted debt.

"Then what?" he pleaded.  "It's what you claimed you wanted."

"I want honesty, for one thing."

"That works both ways, Avon."

"Of course."

The point should have been his but somehow remained Avon's.  "That was one thing," Blake growled.

"I do not expect you to be other than you are, Blake, or to give up your crusade.  But you are still capable of choice.  I will not stay ... unless there are certain changes of approach."

"Such as ....?

"The destruction of Star One."

"You've already agreed ...." Blake began furiously, then stopped as Avon's face hardened implacably.  The man's suitcase was half packed.  The rules had changed, such as they were, and his actions had changed them.

"Tell me what the current plan is, Blake.  Presuming things go according to plan."

"We're heading for a planet named Goth.  On Goth we find another cyber-surgeon named Lurgen, or find his brain print.  With it we get the key to the location of Star One.  We find the Central Computer Complex.  We destroy it.  Once and for all."

"No," Avon repeated.  "Not **we**.  You, perhaps, but not **we** , not any longer."

"And what," Blake choked out against the rage that filled him once again, "just what exactly, would **we** do?"

"There is no reason whatsoever to demolish Star One, except your ever increasing desire for personal vengeance.  I understand the impulse, but it is against your own basic tenets.  The more you destroy, the more chaos you create, the greater the chance that a system as violent, as evil, as exploitive as the Federation will seize power and impose its own order."  He smiled bitterly and shrugged, "Not that I have much hope for any government over the long term.  All systems seek to perpetuate themselves, perpetuate their own power.

"The destruction of the Federation is the only hope for any sort of free society to arise," he insisted.

"Yes, Blake.  But it is not necessary to raze the Central Computer Complex to accomplish that, only to control it."

"Power corrupts, Avon, and absolute power ...."

"How long do you trust yourself, Blake?  How long before absolute power corrupts you absolutely?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Avon.  How can you put a time limit on something like that?"

"Can you control yourself for five years, Blake, before the urge to dictate your will to the entire universe overwhelms you?  Shall I promise to kill you, Blake, if I see powerlust has driven you mad?"

Blake glared at Avon, his eyes narrowed in assessment.  "Am I the major problem, then?"

Avon bared his teeth.  "Oh, I would say so.  Surely it's not Cally you're afraid of, or even Jenna.  The vision of Vila in control is, of course, too terrifying to even contemplate at the moment.  The mind simple boggles.  As for myself ....  Well yes, running the universe is an intriguing idea on a certain level, but it would distract me from other projects I find equally compelling, and far less messy and hazardous.  Given the temptation to scheme will be a strong one, we must agree to monitor one another, and be monitored by the others.  If we carry through with my plan, whatever demoniac tinkering we were unable to resist would still pale beside the desolation resulting from the annihilation of Star One.

"Five years?"

"Or less.  I will help you release all the worlds connected to Star One.  In five years the majority of the worlds dominated through Central Control can slowly disengage their connection and establish their own independent computer systems.  As a safeguard against our own _hubris_ , we'll help the most independent, most self-sufficient planets first.  The extent of climate control on the different worlds will be a serious problem for me to deal with technically, as the extent of Federation indoctrination will be for you politically.  You can make general elections a condition of help with this disengagement, Blake, though I doubt you can choose all the candidates.  We can bring in a small hand-picked council if you like.  Avalon would be an excellent choice, though perhaps we should run her for president.  Or would you prefer a triumvirate?  That can be argued over separately and endlessly no doubt."

"No doubt."

"Ideally, we should work out a plan with Orac to destroy all key military base computers in order to cripple any possible Federation assault on Star One. I would prefer not to have every cruiser in the galaxy searching for our whereabouts, and possibly finding it.  It will also be a significant help to your rabble in any impromptu revolts that may arise."

"You've obviously thought about this quite a bit," Blake commented acidly.

"I suffer from insomnia.  Political theory is more soporific than the intricacies of computer design.  Migraine is a side effect of the latter, whereas the former only brings on flatulence."

"You never gave a damn before about the bleeding masses, Avon," Blake said belligerently.  "What's changed?"

Avon gave him a withering glance for that remark, but he answered the question.  "Perhaps I don't care.  Perhaps I never shall.  But if I attempt something I try to see it clearly and do it as well as I am able.  I think I have taken the role of reluctant follower as far as it will go.  If I stay aboard Liberator now, it will be as your lover.  I see no sane way to conduct that relationship without committing at least my intellect to your cause.  If I stay, Blake, I will no longer merely snipe from sidelines."

"Standing three inches from my face is sniping from the sidelines?" Blake asked caustically.

Avon came up to him, that exact distance, a cold authority in his face, in his voice.  "I will not back down, Blake ... either for your convenience or my own."  He faced Blake, unmoving, unrelenting, his eyes black as coal.

Blake stared into their blackness, aware of how much Avon's strength threatened him, and of how much he prized it.  Stared until the scorched darkness of that gaze burned him, consumed him with its hidden light.

"Avon, you're a fraud," Blake challenged him quietly.  You've believed all along."

Avon did turn away then, walking away a few paces.  When he turned back to speak his voice was composed, with a slight rasping edge of self-mockery.  "I believe ....  I believe that, even if we follow my plan instead of your own, we will still be lucky to succeed in establishing a political system to supplant Federation indoctrination on the majority of worlds, or improve upon it to any great degree.  The wolves will devour the sheep, Blake, as they have always done.  I believe we will be supremely lucky if we manage to die before whatever success we do achieve degenerates before our eyes into some new obscenity.  I believe ... it is worth the effort, as much as any other folly of human existence.  My own motivations are, as always, more self-centered.  So, I am willing be **your** fool, Blake, but only on my own terms."

"I have a fool already, Avon."

He meant it to be light but somehow it was not.  Not quite.  Avon's face was suddenly bleak.  His eyes were hooded but Blake caught the brief, involuntary glance he gave his suitcase.  Then Avon looked at him directly again.  "So you have," he said, grimly.  "And what possible use have you for two?"

Icy fear prickled along Blake's spine.  He could not bear to let Avon go, but he could not overcome his aversion to Avon's plan.  He couldn't deny the logic of it, but every beat of his heart pounded an adamant **No** through his system.  There were too many pitfalls, too many possibilities for corruption.  How could Blake trust Avon in this?  There was such consuming curiosity, such unrelenting ruthlessness in the man, he doubted Avon could resist tinkering once they began, trying to shape the universe to his own specifications.  Blake doubted **he** could resist ....

Yet if they concentrated on the dismantling the powerbase, on creating independent planets as quickly as possible, the harm they did would probably be limited.  Certainly more limited than the mayhem that would follow the absolute destruction of Star One.  He felt a surge of fury and was forced to face what it was.  He wanted to destroy Star One!  Annihilate it no matter what the cost.  He saw Gan's face raised up to him, blind in death.  The faces of the friends Travis had murdered, people he had led.  Felt the fabric of his mind beginning to shred under the mind wipe device, murdering his past.  Rage rose up in him, the need to obliterate absolutely the cause of his pain and suffering.  Avon was right, his desire for justice had become a relentless craving for vengeance.  It burned in his guts, ferocious and pitiless.  It took all his will to acknowledge it and suppress it.

He looked up to see Avon still waiting.  His body was rigid, his eyes shuttered and glassy, staring into some desolate internal landscape.  Blake touched him gently, one hand against his cheek, "All right, Avon.  It looks to be a ship of fools."

Avon looked at him blankly.  All that cold, impassioned argument, and the man had not really expected him to agree.  Would Avon have succumbed then, finally, to remain with him?  He doubted Avon had been bluffing, but he did not know and was glad he would never find out.  If he had won the acquiescence he thought he wanted, they would have ended hating themselves and each other.  Blake had to smile at Avon's dazed expression, feeling so calm and clear himself now.  He lowered his hand to Avon's shoulder, gave it a squeeze and said cheerfully, "It's a good plan, Avon.  Better than blowing Star One to bits, much as I would have enjoyed it.  We'll talk to the others about it ... in the morning."

He placed Avon's suitcase on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed.  Avon came and stood looking down at him, still bemused.  "What the hell have I gotten myself into?" he asked.

"Welcome to the revolution," Blake said wryly, and opened his arms.

 


End file.
